Feargal Brennan and The Athletic’s Sam Lee joined Ant McGinley on a recent edition of the Football Social Daily podcast where they discussed the latest goings-on in the Premier League and one of the topics that was discussed on this podcast was Manchester United centre-back, Harry Maguire.
The Red Devils earned a 5-2 win over Bournemouth last Saturday in the Premier League, however, the Cherries opened the scoring in this fixture thanks to a Junior Stanislas strike.
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During this recent edition of the Football Social Daily podcast, the show’s host McGinley shared (41:26) that he believes both David de Gea and Maguire could have done better to prevent Stanislas from scoring this goal and he then went on to ask Brennan if United just need “a great goalkeeper and a centre-back” to challenge for the Premier League title.
After declaring that he believes De Gea is ‘still a very good goalkeeper’, Brennan shared his thoughts on Maguire’s quality in response to this question, saying: “I do think it’s fair to have a conversation about the fact that he isn’t the player that he was built up to be before he signed.
“He is a very good player; he’s good aerially, he’s a physical presence, he’s a good organiser at the back – but as we saw with the goal yesterday where he got ‘megged, the Steven Bergwijn goal against Tottenham where he got skinned, he is very static.
“Whoever United bring in in the summer, or if they try and repurpose Eric Bailly or Victor Lindelof, he needs to have real mobility around him because for all of his strengths, if a forward gets him one-on-one in a situation, he’s dead in the water.”
Have you been pleased with Harry Maguire this season?YES
NO
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TIF Thoughts…
Brennan might have a point in saying that Stanislas’ goal at the weekend may have exposed some weaknesses in Maguire’s game.
However, as per WhoScored, Maguire has earned an average overall rating of 7.14 from his 33 Premier League games for United this season, making him the club’s sixth-highest rated player in England’s top-tier this term.
So with that in mind, it may be harsh to say that he “isn’t the player that he was built up to be,” as he may have played a significant role in helping the Red Devils to concede 11 fewer goals after playing 33 games this season than they had conceded after playing 33 games last season since he joined the club last summer.